Is it possible that a person can learn to sing loud enough or at the right pitch to shatter glass? Wondering if this is just a myth.
Per Cecil, probably - but it would take a pretty loud voice with a pure tone Can opera singers shatter glass with their high notes? - The Straight Dope
Cool!
Huh. The last one I saw, they were only able to do it by buzzing lips, as it took a really low frequency. When did they revisit this?
It makes perfect sense that it would be a guy singing in falsetto, though. Falsetto has a lot of the harmonics dampened out and thus is closer to a pure tone.
Oh great, now I have to clean up the pieces of my TV spread across my living room.
You’re thinking of the episode about extinguishing a flame.
Breaking a glass was a different, earlier episode. Neither is a revisit.
Of course, it’s a crystal wineglass, very thin glass, very high Q therefore it vibrates quite well with proper “pumping”.
When you do the wet finger on rim trick, you can find the resonant frequency. (Or tick it with your fingernail) As the Mythbuster video shows, when it with the right frequency, it vibrates like a bell more and more deformed until it overstresses and breaks.
But just general pieces of glass? not likely. The opera singer busting every piece of glass in earshot is a Hollywood trope.
FWIW, the Wiki on Ella Fitzgerald says: "Fitzgerald also appeared in TV commercials, her most memorable being an ad for Memorex. In the commercials, she sang a note that shattered a glass while being recorded on a Memorex cassette tape. The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking: “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”
That would be an amplified voice, though. Any sound will break glass, if it’s loud enough.
Only her hairdresser knows for sure.